Solutions

Brave Movement

Using practice-based knowledge grounded in lived expertise, the Brave Movement works to strengthen governments’ accountability for ending childhood sexual violence. The Movement has influenced international policy discussions and shaped how governments are assessed on prevention and response. 

This program is implemented by Brave Movement
Published: 25 February 2026
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Key themes

When victims and/or survivors intentionally come together to reflect on, document and share their expertise, they produce a powerful form of practice-based knowledge. This can provide critical insights into the failures (or successes) of institutional responses and offer concrete recommendations for improving systems. This collective knowledge can also shift public narratives, challenge entrenched institutions, and drive legal or policy change that individual efforts alone may not achieve.

What these case studies show 

These case studies illustrate how practice-based knowledge (PbK) is used in real world settings to improve childhood sexual violence prevention and response. Each case focuses on what practitioners or survivor-led groups learned through action, reflection, and decision-making in their own contexts, and how that knowledge was taken forward. 

What these case studies do and do not do 

The case studies do not aim to produce generalisable findings. Instead, they offer context-specific insight into how practice unfolds, where challenges emerge, and how actors respond in real time. The absence of evaluation or impact data should not be interpreted as evidence for or against effectiveness. 

How to use these insights in your own work 

These case studies are intended to support reflection rather than replication. Readers may find them useful for: 

  • identifying questions to explore within their own practice
  • recognising patterns or tensions that resonate with their own settings
  • anticipating practical, ethical, or institutional challenges before they arise 

Ethical use and limitations 

Documenting and sharing PbK requires careful attention to safety, consent, power, and potential harm, particularly when engaging with sensitive experiences of child sexual violence. The ethical principles guiding this work are set out in the PbK Guidance Framework 

Scope and limits of the knowledge shared 

Each case study reflects the type and depth of knowledge available within its context. Differences in format, detail, and focus reflect variation in purpose, access, and the conditions under which knowledge was documented and shared.  

Content warning  

Some of the case studies include details of childhood sexual violence. Each case study includes specific content notes to support informed engagement. Please take care of your well-being as you read and step away if needed. For additional support, you may find it helpful to consult the following resources:  

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Context

The Brave Movement emerged in response to persistent gaps between government commitments to address childhood sexual violence and the realities experienced by survivors. While childhood sexual violence is widely acknowledged as a global human rights crisis, survivor perspectives have historically been marginalised in policy design, monitoring, and accountability processes.

The Brave Movement brings together survivor advocates and allies from multiple countries to collectively engage with global and national policy spaces, including G7[1] processes and Council of Europe mechanisms, with the aim of ensuring that survivor expertise informs how governments prevent, respond to, and are held accountable for childhood sexual violence. 

"There is hope" - Brave Movement

"There is hope" - Brave Movement

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From insight to action

How practice-based knowledge was gathered:

The Brave Movement’s practice-based knowledge is generated through sustained survivor-led advocacy, reflection, and engagement with policy processes. Survivor advocates drew on their lived experiences of navigating justice systems, support services, and institutional responses to childhood sexual violence to identify recurring barriers and priorities. 

This knowledge was consolidated through survivor consultations, analysis, and iterative engagement with advocacy processes.  This includes the co-creation of the Brave G7 Call to Action -a survivor-led accountability framework to translate survivors’ lived expertise into specific, measurable expectations for governments. Survivor-informed policy indicators were shaped by survivors’ experiences of delayed justice, exclusion from decision-making, fragmented national responses, and insufficient investment in child protection.  

The Brave Movement translated these practice-based insights into concrete advocacy tools and actions: 

  • Global advocacy and engagement: Survivor advocates engaged directly with G7 processes, ensuring CSV remained on the international agenda and contributing to the inclusion of the Brave G7 Call to Action in G7 discussions.
  • Survivor-informed accountability tool: The Movement co-developed the #BeBrave G7 Scorecard, which assesses G7 countries against survivor-defined indicators, including survivor engagement, legal frameworks, national action plans, and financial investment.
  • Institutional engagement: In 2023, the Brave Movement gained observer status with the Lanzarote Committee [2] creating a formal channel for survivor perspectives to inform regional child protection governance.
  • Actionable resources: The Movement developed practical guidance for establishing Survivor Councils, drawing on survivor experience to support meaningful, ethical participation rather than tokenistic consultation. 
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Real world impact

Increased visibility and accountability:

The #BeBrave G7 Scorecard publicly documented gaps between commitments and action, drawing attention to legal, policy, and funding failures across G7 countries.

Survivor participation mechanisms:

Several G7 countries demonstrated movement toward survivor engagement, including Germany’s statutory National Survivors Council, Canada’s establishment of a Survivors Council, France’s public commitment to create one following survivor advocacy, and the UK’s ongoing efforts to establish its National Survivors Council.

Policy attention:

Survivor-led advocacy contributed to renewed focus on online safety legislation, statutes of limitations, and survivor participation within G7 policy discussions.

What didn't change:

  • No G7 country currently has a comprehensive national action plan that adequately integrates prevention, healing, and justice.
  • Survivor participation remains uneven and, in many contexts, lacks sustained resourcing or formal authority.
  • Significant cuts to Official Development Assistance continue to undermine global child protection efforts.  

What was learned from practice-based knowledge
Survivor-led PbK surfaced several systemic gaps across G7 countries: 

  • Barriers to justice: Survivors highlighted how criminal statutes of limitations prevent many from seeking justice, given that disclosure often occurs decades after abuse.
  • Marginalisation of survivor voices: Survivor participation in policy design remains limited or symbolic in many countries, with few formal, government-supported survivor councils.
  • Fragmented responses: Survivors identified the absence of comprehensive national action plans addressing prevention, healing, and justice as a major barrier to coherent responses to CSV.
  • Weak accountability mechanisms: Survivors observed that political commitments are often not matched by monitoring, enforcement, or consequences for inaction.
  • Financial retreat: Survivor advocates identified reductions in development assistance and child protection funding as undermining global efforts to prevent and respond to CSV, particularly in lower- and middle-income contexts.  

Why this matters: the value of practice-based knowledge:

The Brave Movement demonstrates how survivors’ lived expertise can function as practice-based knowledge when it is systematically applied to shape policy frameworks and accountability mechanisms. By translating survivor insights into indicators, scorecards, and governance tools, the Movement shows how practice-based knowledge can surface systemic failures that are often obscured by high-level commitments. 

Practice-based knowledge does not replace research or formal evidence. Instead, survivor-led practice-based knowledge helps define what should be measured, where accountability is missing, and which questions research and policy must address to avoid reproducing harm. 

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If you're working in a similar context

For survivor advocates and civil society organisations 

  • How are survivors currently engaged in policy processes in your context, and where does participation risk being symbolic rather than influential?
  • What recurring barriers do survivors identify when engaging with justice systems or support services? 

For policymakers and international actors 

  • Are survivor perspectives embedded in how policies are designed, monitored, and evaluated?
  • What accountability mechanisms exist to track whether commitments to address childhood sexual violence are actually implemented? 

Overall reflective questions 

  • How can lived expertise be translated into concrete indicators, tools, or benchmarks in your context?
  • Where does practice-based knowledge point to gaps that are not captured by existing data or evaluations?
  • What safeguards are needed to ensure survivor participation is ethical, supported, and non-extractive? 
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Sources and contact

The Brave Movement and survivor advocates engaged across G7 and international policy processes. 

Sources  

[1] Brave Movement. (2025, June). Ending childhood sexual violence: #BeBrave G7 Scorecard. https://cdn.bravemovement.org/files/Ending_Childhood_Sexual_Violence_G7_Scorecard_2025.pdf

[2] Brave Movement. (2025, June 25). 15 years of the Lanzarote Convention: Hope, dignity and progress. https://www.bravemovement.org/blog/15-years-of-the-lanzarote-convention-hope-dignity-and-progress  

[3] Brave Movement. (2025). Survivor Council Guide: Practical guide with expertise from survivor advocates.  https://cdn.bravemovement.org/files/Survivor-Council-Guide-English.pdf  

[4] Ligiero, D., De Angulo, B., & Gatera, G. (2024). Prevention, healing, and justice: A survivor-centred framework for ending violence against women and children. The Lancet, 403(10427), 595-597. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02518-7 

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Last updated: 25 February 2026